Mercury News
“Spore” may or may not live up to its massive hype, but I found the new game from “The Sims” creator Will Wright fun, stimulating and engrossing.
I played “Spore” for about eight hours over the course of two days and would have played more if I didn’t have to break away for food, sleep — or to write this review.
The game has its flaws — controlling the action can be daunting as the game becomes increasingly complex— but it ranks among the most engaging that I’ve played in years and nearly up there with the “Civilization” series, which are my all-time favorite games.
In case you’ve been under a rock and haven’t heard, “Spore” is the latest big idea from Wright, the legendary game developer at Electronic Arts who also created the “SimCity” series. The game is his attempt to turn the process of evolution into entertainment.
“Spore” is something of an amalgam, taking ideas and cues not only from “The Sims” and “SimCity,” but also from “Civilization” and “Alpha Centauri,” both from the equally renowned Sid Meier.
Players start off controlling a single-cell organism. By gobbling up other creatures or plants in the primordial goo, the organism gets bigger and more developed and accumulates points.
Players can direct the evolution of their organism by having it mate — through sending out a love song and dancing — with others of its species. Using the points they’ve accumulated, players can buy potentially beneficial appendages for their organism, such as more complex eyes or cilia to allow them to turn quickly.
The game continues in this fashion until the organism develops enough to become a land creature, which represents the next level of play. Instead of devouring other cells, the creature attacks — or learns to cooperate with — other creatures.
From there, the creature evolves into a tribal species that has to learn to conquer or co-opt other tribes, then into a civilization, which has to conquer or co-opt other cities, and from there a space-faring civilization whose mission is to colonize other planets.
As you go along, your choices influence the type of creature or civilization you will become — and how other creatures or civilizations will relate to you. If you’re aggressive, for instance, you’ll find it more difficult to get other species or cities to cooperate with you.
That helps give the game depth, potentially allowing you to play multiple times without duplicating your creature’s evolution.
And the game offers customization tools that further make each experience unique. During the first two stages, each time players create a new generation of their creatures, they can change everything from their creatures’ eyes to their skin color to their posture to the length of their arms and legs.
In later levels, players have similar control over their creatures’ clothes, the design of their buildings and the shape of their land, air, sea and space vehicles. If they don’t want to design things themselves, players can tap into “Spores” online database to download custom creatures, buildings and vehicles created by EA or other players.
But all this depth does have its complications and shortcomings.
With each change in level, the way you control the game changes. At the initial, cell level, you need do little more than move your organism around the screen looking for food and initiating a mating call from time to time. But by the time you reach space-faring status, you have to fly your spaceship in three dimensions, use potentially dozens of gadgets and gizmos to discover, contact or kill other creatures and civilizations or establish your own.
It’s like learning a new game at each level, with little overlap from one level to the next in how you play.
I also found that “Spore” makes it easier to play certain ways than others. When you create your organism at the beginning of the game, “Spore” asks whether it will be an herbivore or a carnivore. I chose the latter. Doing so seemed to predetermine that my organism would evolve into aggressive, militaristic creatures.
I tried repeatedly at the various levels to establish peaceful relations with the creatures around me, but when repeated entreaties failed, I found it much easier to simply devour or conquer them.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. And I likely could have tried harder to use tactics other than violence to complete levels.
I’m eager to play again and find out.
Contact Troy Wolverton at twolverton@mercurynews.com or (408) 920.5021.
